It was some time after Shirou's fourteenth birthday that hereto most
bizarre episode of his life happened.

Shinji Matou suffered an unfortunate accident falling down the
stairs in his very own home. In another parallel world he could have well lived
to an old age if the stars aligned right. Unfortunately for the arrogant,
hedonistic and frankly self-obsessed youth, in this timeline Sakura spent far
more time in the Emiya household and trained both in Magecraft and physical
strength up to the point where she could sometimes give even Tohsaka a decent
fight. She also started feeling something resembling humanity and not being a
broken toy which didn't bode well for her brother.

One time, after spending a night out and not sleeping at all Shinji
was in a poor enough shape to be the only one in the class to flunk an English
exam. The very girls with whom he had paraded around town chuckled at his
troubles and to someone of Matou's pride it was enough to place him in a very foul
mood. The teen needed some special stress relief.

So, despite the fact that Sakura didn't need stabilization for
another week at least, after getting home and making sure that Zouken wasn't
there, he grabbed his sister by the hair and dragged her to the bedroom. Or
would have, had Sakura not been having a couple very bad days herself with
Tohsaka hugging more and more of Shirou's attention with working on developing
blades according to the blueprints she gifted the teenage Magus for his
birthday.

Victims of repeated abuse normally feel terrified and hopeless
against their abusers even if they have the actual power to resist. Maybe they
have resisted in the past and it just made things so much worse. But everyone can
snap.

When Zouken got home, he heard the screams of his grandson and the
calm, soothing voice of Sakura.

"Shhh… Onii-san, don't worry it will be alright. Your sister will
take good care of you, just as you have taken good care of me."

When the patriarch of the family turned a corner he saw Sakura
sitting on the floor and cradling Shinji's head in her lap, the boy's neck bent
at a strange angle.

"You are insane!!! They will put you away for life!"

"Oh, grandfather, welcome home. Onii-san seems to be in pain, can
you help?"

Unceremoniously, Zouken taped the mouth of his good-for-nothing
grandson shut and talked to Sakura. She kept insisting it was an accident and
that she didn't need her brother's help and would find another way to keep
herself sane and stable. She didn't seem that stable or even sane at the moment
but her mental health wasn't something that had ever bothered Zouken before.
Only functionality mattered.

Sure, her grandfather could have called in a few favors and found
someone to remove Shinji's paralysis but he had serious doubts the boy would
keep his mouth shut anymore. Moreover, nothing would prevent Sakura from
helping another ‘accident' occur. The girl was physically stronger than Shinji
with his lack of sleep, P.E. and the drinking habit the twerp had acquired when
he was about thirteen.

"Grandfather, no, please, no!"

"Oh, shut up, you waste of genes! You should thank your sister that
she wants you to stay alive. Make sure he doesn't talk."

The latter part was aimed at a basement room filled with a writhing,
agitated mass of crest worms, who seemed rather excited at having something new
to play with.

For the first time in her life, standing on top of those stairs,
Sakura wasn't the one to go into the pit. She didn't feel the usual numb,
nauseating terror that came with the process. No, as her father tossed her
brother into hell, she felt nothing. Well, maybe a bit of contempt and
sickeningly sweet taste of revenge.

That night, Shinji truly became a vegetable: the worms ate at his
nerves and energies until the damage had become such that he couldn't move a
single muscle anymore. Trapped inside his own brain with no way to communicate
with the outside world, he was transferred into a hospital and put on life support.

He still could hear, see and understand what the doctors and nurses
talked about but the lack of any way to reciprocate made it so much worse.

Sakura came to dear her dear brother once a week to read him the
newspaper and cheerfully talk about her life. Inside Shinji's skull oceans of
rage were slowly supplanted by a multitude of faint hysteric whispers.

###

The problem with Sakura's plan, as with all acts of desperation, was
lack of any sort of forethought. Sure, she was at an age when she could
actually enter in a sexual relationship with a classmate but being the victim of
repeated rape sort of put a damper on her chances of getting some healthy fun.
Time passed while the girl procrastinated and she got more and more weird looks
from Tohsaka as Sakura grew more unstable and aggressive. Meanwhile, her terror
at what her grandfather would do to keep from going completely off the kilter
steered her thoughts into another quite desperate direction. A romantic, if
quite screwed up direction.

She jumped Shirou after holding out for about a week and a half when
Dietrich was out of home and they were supposed to go over their knowledge of
runes in order to come up with clothes that would act as a Prana barrier for a
familiar who wore them. Something of a pet project that Rin insisted upon after
learning that her grandfather could pretty much do whatever the hell he wanted
with Sakura's body because of the control he exerted over the worms inside her.
The plan was to come up with something to cut the connection long enough to do
something about the damn familiars.

Returning to the issue that plagued Shirou at that precise moment:
one second he was going over the associations that the rune Algiz invoked in
him and the next he suddenly found his eyes full of purple hair and his mouth
having two tongues in it instead of one. The teen sort of flailed around
wondering what the hell Sakura was doing, why her face was so red, and which meanings
of the rune he had missed.

Just when a frightened, ashamed but very determined Sakura threw off
her top, Tohsaka walked into the room.

It spoke something about the Matou's state of mind that she was so
focused on what she believed to be the best solution to her situation that she
didn't even bother to think that her sister always followed her to Emiya's household
these days, arriving a bit after her.

They were in Shirou's room at the moment and the reaction was quite
natural and very Tohsaka. Seeing her younger sister being snogged by the teen (it
is notoriously difficult to determine the initiator of snogging when said
snogging is occurring) she calmly took a wooden club off the weapon wall,
walked up to the pair and cocked Shirou on the head, throwing the boy into
unconsciousness.

When the boy came to, he found himself facing a livid Tohsaka and a
very embarrassed Sakura sitting in front of him. A sledgehammer was pounding in
his head and he was lying on his side.

Rising into a sitting position, Shirou murmured:

"What a weird dream to have…"

And then he noticed the club Rin was fondly stroking in her lap and
the fact that he could actually see a bit of Sakura's bra due to her blouse not
being fastened properly.

"Okay, can I kill him now, Sakura? I waited until he woke up like
you asked but no man survives groping my sister!"

"Ermm… Nee-san, I sort of groped him?"

At another time Tohsaka's heart would have jumped at Sakura calling
her ‘sister' but now she was too far beyond the edges of even her anger scale
to still be capable of rational thought. She turned to the violet-haired girl
and barked just one word:

"Explain!"

Later Sakura would think that the reason why the thought of Rin
entering the room didn't occur to her was that she was tired of keeping all the
Matou's secrets. She fidgeted.

"You remember about the last Holy Grail war, Tohsaka-senpai?"

"Of course I freaking remember! Our father died in it!"

Shirou watched the exchange as the pain in his temples slowly
receded:

"Is it the shards?"

Sakura nodded. Tohsaka looked from one to the other and, not being
able to withhold anymore:

"IF NOBODY WILL TELL ME THE FULL STORY HEADS WILL ROLL! AND I AM IN
A ROOM FULL OF SWORDS SO START TALKING!!!"

"Actually, I am much more proficient with those blades, so…"

Tohsaka levelled Shirou with a petrifying glare of such intensity
that he suddenly found himself much less sure of being able to fight her, even
with all his skill and the room being his workshop.

All the while, Sakura grew redder and redder, trying to gather her
courage. The killing intent she felt from her sister toward her crush was what
finally pushed her to confess:

"The former Grail… I have pieces of it in me. It destabilizes my
Prana."

"And how do you do that? With meditation and prayer?"

Tohsaka's sister went scarlet and her answer came in such a small
voice it could barely be registered:

"With sex…"

Rin blinked. Then blinked again. Then looked from Shirou to Sakura
and back. Blinked again. Put two and two together.

"YOU HAVE BEEN SLEEPING WITH MY BABY SISTER?! I WILL KILL YOU!"

Somehow, Matou managed to interpose herself between the
personification of sisterly wrath and the most precious person in her life,
preventing her from assaulting Shirou all the while shaking her head and
flailing her arms as hard as she could.

"No, no, no, this was the first time. My brother helped before!"

And the room grew dead silent. Sakura blanched realizing what she
had just blurted out. Tohsaka fell on her knees with a thump, her eyes the size
of saucers. Shirou just froze for a moment and then summoned a small curvy
knife into his hand and pricked a finger. The pain proved that it wasn't some
fucked up dream-nightmare caused by overthinking his relationship with the girls
and reading gratuitous smut out of academic interest. There was pain, there was
blood – what he was hearing was real.

Sighing, he rose to his feet, walked up behind Sakura and placed a
reassuring hand on her shoulder, causing the girl to yelp and jump a little.

"I think you should tell us everything, Sakura. And I think it is
time we told Tohsaka the truth about the Grail."

The next half an hour was perhaps the most embarrassing and awkward
time in teen's life. As desensitized as he was to normal human emotions, even
he could tell that the level of inappropriateness in the room was such that you
could cut it with a knife, butter the horrors Sakura spoke about with it and
then die of food poisoning after trying to force it down. The story that came
out of her with ever-increasing speed was so horrible, it was impossible to
stomach. Tohsaka actually had to excuse herself when Matou training was
described in detail and judging by how green her face was when she returned, it
wasn't a small bladder problem.

When Sakura was done, the room was silent again.

"That is some fucked up shit."

Rin looked grim like a storm cloud.

"A good summary. I don't really understand the concept of rape but I
imagine losing control of your body like that was unpleasant."

"Unpleasant?! Shirou, you unfeeling…"

Sakura sharply cut off her sister:

"That's enough, Tohsaka-senpai. Shirou is Shirou. Yes it was bad but
the fact that I would die without it helped a bit. I understand why my
grandfather condoned it…"

"Sakura!.."

"No, nee-san. It's true. I was a child, my body was defiled with
worms and remains of an unholy curse, how do you picture a mutually willing relationship
with me in it? Who in their right mind would get involved?"

"I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that you actually have
pieces of a Grail lodged in side you… And the whole curse thing. To think I
have spent most of my life working on reaching the goal that eluded our father
to find that it is tainted beyond any hope of use."

While Tohsaka ground her teeth, Shirou thought.

"So that is why you moved on me? It is either this or going insane?"

Growing red again, Sakura nodded.

"And you have no one else to turn to?"

The girl shook her head vehemently. Shirou rubbed the bridge of his
nose before turning to Tohsaka resolutely:

"I would ask you to go home early, Rin. It appears we have no other
choice. Sakura, how often do you need it?"

"I can last maybe two and a half weeks… If I want to stay completely
rational, then about once a week."

Tohsaka looked dead-on at Shirou before snapping:

"Wait the fuck up, Emiya! What the hell do you mean, there is no
choice! And Sakura, are you gonna just go with it?"

The boy cocked his head, expression of complete incomprehension upon
his face:

"I don't see what the big deal is. Friends are supposed to help each
other, right? I have nothing against it: I don't think Sakura is ‘unclean' and
besides, when she kissed me it was kind of pleasant. Like biting a ripe tomato."

Completely sure that he had explained everything, Shirou turned to
Sakura:

"I'm not exactly sure how this is supposed to go but do you have a
condom?"

He certainly didn't think he would be having that sort of
conversation when he woke up that morning. Judging by the fact that Sakura
looked like she was about to die from embarrassment, neither did she.

"I'm on birth control…"

Tohsaka, excluded from the conversation, facepalmed.

"Of course you are."

Then she got up, walked to the door, locked it, turned towards the
two of them and started unbuttoning her blouse:

"Might as well get to it."

"Tohsaka? What the hell are you doing?"

Rin's cheeks started to go pink but she wasn't about to back down:

"It is a medical procedure, right?"

"Pretty much."

"And both of you need to feel good for it to work, right?"

"Don't see where you are going with this."

"Well, I need to make sure this doesn't turn all lovey-dovey! I
mean, it is my responsibility too! That's it! As the heir to the Tohsaka name,
I have a moral obligation to clean up the messes left by my ancestors!"

The fervor disappearing as suddenly as it had appeared, she added in
a small voice accompanied by a full-blown blush:

"And I think I can help."

Shirou didn't really mind either way. The concept of inappropriate
was foreign to his analytical mind when it came to people doing something they
all wanted. He could easily understand why rape was wrong from an intellectual
standpoint but otherwise… Gender, fetishes, different types of play – the argument
of some of the combinations being unnatural or disgusting was null and void for
the boy who had very few emotional connections to the world. So, seeing as
basically anything was okay to him and that Tohsaka made her intentions quite
clear, he walked to the wardrobe took out a pair of futons he had there and
started unrolling them.

There was just one thing left to confirm:

"Sakura, you okay with this?"

The girl had so much blood going to her head and face, Shirou
seriously worried about her fainting or having a stroke. Still, she nodded.

"Something occurs to me. I mean, I don't even know, whether you can
call this consent, as you don't have any choice, Sakura… Maybe, better…"

The girl's reply was small but firm:

"I want this, senpai."

Tohsaka, on the verge of losing her resolve any moment was a bit
more straightforward:

"Oh, shut up, Shirou."

And for the second time during that day and in his life, Shirou
experienced the sensation of having his mouth assaulted by a very enthusiastic
girl.

The last fully coherent thought he had was that the sisters tasted
alike too.

###

Since that day, his life changed quite a bit. The relationship he
had with Rin and Sakura became a lot more complicated and somewhat weird but
the latter part completely skipped Shirou's notice. He checked Japanese laws
and the books he had on appropriate comportment for Magi, found out they weren't
doing anything they could be prosecuted for either by the civilian or the
mystical justice system and threw the whole issue out of his head. To him doing
what he could to keep a friend sane and safe felt natural. He might have had a
problem if Issei had a similar problem but more due to the fact that his body
didn't seem to find men attractive for some reason – not because he had a moral
problem with sleeping with whomever to basically save their life.

Although, the teen quickly became aware why most of the books he
read on the subject of relationships (to help him adjust and blend in better)
insisted that keeping sex strictly casual for prolonged periods of time was
difficult, if not impossible. The first two of three times they managed to keep
things more or less medical: satisfying Sakura, cleaning up, getting back into
their clothes and continuing with their business. The first two or three times.

For some weird reason, Tohsaka grew more and more irritated with
each time, until she finally snapped and pretty much appropriated Shirou for
the rest of the evening, incoherently grumbling something about fairness and
using legitimate medical conditions as an excuse to get some. He didn't really
mind even if he didn't get why she was so upset.

They later introduced cuddling. Zouken had allowed Sakura to stay at
his house in the past and it wasn't like Tohsaka had anywhere to go. Shirou explained
the situation to Dietrich and if the German Magus had a problem with his
adopted son basically dating and sleeping with his two other teenage
apprentices, he didn't show it.

Everything seemed set for their first active sleepover. Shirou had a
nagging feeling that he was missing something but was very soon distracted by
two temperamental (one – pouty, one – aggressive) young women demanding his
attention, so he let it go.

He really, really shouldn't have.

That was on Saturday and Sunday started with Shirou waking up from horrible,
ungodly racket. It sounded like a hurricane, meeting steelworks factory,
meeting two herds of elephants copulating while overdosed on Viagra. It was
impossible to ignore.

While the sound more than a bit unpleasant, the fact that he woke up
with a very naked Sakura possessively having wrapped her arms and legs around
him during the night compensated for it somewhat and he had maybe ten seconds
of hesitation during which he contemplated whether to check for the source of
the disturbance or grab Sakura and run. He might have done the latter, purely
for safety's sake, had Tohsaka been in the room with them but she seemed to be
somewhere else and he couldn't quite leave her to the monster. Perhaps, the
Holy Grail War had started last night and they didn't notice? Although where
was the smell of Prana then?

Ten seconds later Taiga flew into his room dragging a very sleep,
almost zombie-like Tohsaka behind her. Tohsaka, who had only a half-buttoned
shirt on her. Which was glaringly Shirou's.

If Taiga had been livid before, she went ballistic after seeing a
completely naked and red all over Sakura on top of similarly lacking in clothes
nonchalant Shirou.

"SHIROU, WHAT THE BLOODY FUCK?! WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT HAREMS?!
WHERE THE HELL DID NEE-SAN GO SO WRONG?! AND SAKURA!!!"

Then she added in a quieter voice:

"I am a failure as a sister and a teacher… It's always the quiet and
the polite ones…"

He knew he had forgotten something.

Some of their neighbors thought they heard the start of an
earthquake that day. The sort of sound made by distant skyscrapers toppling and
falling to the ground in a mangled heap of screeching concrete and steel.

###

It took them all hours to calm the raging tiger of Fuyuki.
Reassurance, cajoling, bribery with food, internet searches on laws… Eventually
Dietrich was able to persuade Fujimura to keep silent, as, while his son's
relationship with the Tohsaka and Matou heirs was unorthodox, everybody was
happy and wasn't that the most important thing?

It took Taiga a week of sick leave and a bit of a bender to come to
terms with the fact that her little brother had gotten so comfortable with sex before
the age of fifteen that he had already moved on to threesomes. After the wave
of scantily clad rage had gone through the bars of Fuyuki, constantly spouting
something about ‘not losing to upstart nymphomaniacs' (and giving a major
headache to the Yakuza trying to keep her safe), Fujimura was able to regain
her composure.

But henceforth she demanded twice the food from Shirou.

###

"Damn it, I never wanted kids and somehow I've ended up with three
of you. You know, Shirou, I'm tempted to bring Kiritsugu back just to hit him
in the face for what he so easily managed to pile up on me. I was the best of
my class in Clock Tower, did you know that? Grew up an orphan, did my damnedest
to become apprenticed to a lord, dedicated my life to the study of Mystic
Codes. When the Tower wanted to tie me up in place, to bury me in obligations
and commitments, I went to the wonderful Orient. It really helped that in China
I was pretty much a second-rate person and nobody wanted to wrap me up in
anything. Lived a life, got some friends, always protected my reputation…
everything went fine right up to the point when I suddenly got a call from the
infamous Magus Killer. Curses! Magical artefacts the likes of which I've never
seen! A boy with abilities so rare, there probably isn't another Magus like
that in the world! Access to money, help with transferring my workshop! And all
I needed was to look after one brat. Not even look after. Really, just nudge in
the right direction because the boy was pretty much self-sufficient. And look
at me now: I have an adopted son and you two… with how much time you spend
here, with how much I've poured into you, you are pretty much adopted
daughters. How the hell did this happen?"

It was the night that Dietrich was leaving. The Grail was almost
charged, the Circles had been drawn. All that remained was to wait for the
beginning of the War, summon Servants and try not to die. They held a dinner at
the Emiya household to see their teacher off. Teacher, who was getting more
drunk by the minute.

Dietrich peered intensely into the glass of brandy he was holding as
if the answer to life's mysteries could be found inside it.

"But I suppose that's life: always throwing you a curveball just
when you become content, eh? However it happened, you three are my responsibility
now. A Mystic Code specialist won't be my help during the War and I have other
obligations."

There was a sound of a car driver honking their horn outside.

"And here comes one of them. I have left you a box with some defensive
Codes that you can use in a pinch. They are very expensive, and I swear to
Root, if you use them and deplete them or, worse, break them I will make you
work off every damn penny. Just don't die, the three of you, please. You are
way too young for this shit to kill you."

Swaying on his feet a bit, Gladstone hugged Shirou, Rin and Tohsaka
and went outside where a dark, expensive car was waiting for him. A rather tall
and very striking brunette was by the passenger's door, hands folded under a
quite impressive chest.

Dietrich walked up to her, took one last glance at Shirou waving to
him from the doorway and at the girls, the both of whom were silent for now,
sighed and got in the car.

When they were already well on their way to leaving Fuyuki, the
blue-eyed beauty behind the driving wheel commented:

"So that is Shirou."

"Yes."

"You know I could probably help."

"Kiritsugu wanted him to deal with this himself. And if you help, it
will invite too much attention: the Grail is mostly an under-wraps thing,
publicize just what it is and who knows who will come."

The woman grinned teasingly:

"I've heard the Seventh of the Burial Agency is a Magus of
considerable power. Fighting her could be fun."

"If by ‘fun' you mean the years we will spend cleaning up the
wreckage of the city, then yes, fun. Anyway, thanks for helping me get those
items for the kids."

"Nah, Gladstone, don't mention it. I was bored anyway. Who knew you'd
suddenly become a proud father of three, right? Anyway, survival is on them
now. You wanna hit a karaoke?"

###

Extra: Kaze no Nagare

One of the main problems that Dietrich and Kiritsugu had to face
while preparing Shirou for the oncoming Holy Grail War was the fact that the
Heroes that would be summoned into it would possess true Noble Phantasms –
tools of the kings, supposedly having existed nameless in the treasury of
Gilgamesh, then scattered across the world and reborn through the legend and
mastery of their wielders.

The situation would have been less dire if only the boy could easily
get his hands on something comparable to the Phantasms in advance, however, that
was not the case. Many Heroic Spirits never truly existed as people but were
born out of collective belief and worship, yet many others never wielded the
exact objects that were mentioned in their legend as those were added long
after their deaths. Other weapons, pieces of armor and various empowered
accessories had long since been destroyed, now living only in memory.

And what remained would probably be mostly useless. A prime example
was Avalon: in Shirou's body the Ex-rank Phantasm that, according to legend,
had made its wielder pretty much invulnerable and immortal, provided
regeneration so weak that its only significant strong point was that it healed
literally any wounds, letting Dietrich use it as a way to combat Magic Crest
rejection.

In short, they were screwed.

Still, one of the major favors that Kiritsugu had bought with giving
up his body for research was the access to Clock Tower's catalogues of powerful
artefacts created through Magecraft and powerful enough to be a part of some
kind of legend. Finding Kaze no Nagare was a product of that search.

Sure it wasn't something that could simply blow all their troubles
away, as it was a mediocre weapon at best, when compared to what the monsters of
the previous war had wielded but it was the closest thing to a real Noble
Phantasm that a real, breathing human could get their hands on.

The katanas had been crafted during a period of feudal division in
Japan, when a thousand local lords vied for power while normal people
constantly got caught in the crossfire. Safety was something completely absent
during that era and out of that state an idea was born that later found itself
personified in Kaze no Nagare.

They were not made to cut down the enemy. There were not made to
stave off death or intimidate. Their only purpose was to protect others: the
swords made the wielder faster, the more other weapons were around them.

For more than one hundred years Kaze no Nagare changed hands, its
wielders each sacrificing their lives pushing both the limits of the swords and
their own ability to defend their homes, their families and any others who had
nobody else to rely on for protection. Through use and layered enchantments
made by powerful practitioners the katanas became a perfect tool for
intercepting attacks made at others and at yourself (long enough to let others
escape), yet they gained their own restrictions. To use them fully, to make the
speed increase they provided stable they had to be wielded by someone who at
the moment sincerely didn't value their own existence when compared to the
service they could do while protecting others.

One of the swordsmen probably ended up a Heroic Spirit with Kaze no
Nagare becoming their true Noble Phantasm: Ichiro Takashi famously defended a
small town all by himself for three hours from one of the largest bandit bands
of his time. When reinforcements finally arrived, the man sighed in relief and
crumpled onto the ground, both his arms broken by the swords in multiple places
and body oozing blood from multiple wounds.

Takashi's family finally hid the sword in their possession willing
the self-sacrifice to stop, to give those who would die to protect others a
chance at their own happiness but the blade had by then become a legend in and
of itself, its powers those of a well-crafted and used Mystic Code but its fame
and restrictions alike to those normally attributed to Noble Phantasms.

Thankfully, Dietrich's reputation was good enough for him to be able
to find the owners of the blade and offer to make sheaths for the blades that would
make it impossible for anyone to find them in the future, finally allowing
Takashi's family to complete the duty they had taken upon themselves and their
offspring so long ago.

Chapter
end notes

What you have read is the final chapter before the actual Holy Grail
War begins. I had lots of fun with this chapter even if there wasn't much
action or descriptive narration in it, which come the easiest to me.

A couple more words about this story in general for old readers and
those just joining in. This is primarily a character exploration story about a
somewhat more broken Shirou and his friends trying to get through the events of
Fate/Stay Night alive.

I am much more interested in developing characters and relationships
between them while keeping things balanced and believable than I am about
keeping things as close to the canon plot and system as possible. While I did
read the novel two times, the last one was, maybe, six years ago which you will
no doubt notice when we get to the War itself (though I'll skim through the
novel again to make sure I get the chronology right). Add that to the fact that
I will be meshing together everything I'll need from the three routes and bad
ends and… I'm sure you get the picture.

So, characters and their motivations start off as canon (except for
Shirou, who is screwed up in a more obvious way) but the plot will fly wherever
it will. If you spot serious departure from canon for a character without any
explanation or prior development, please, mention it in a review. I will read
it, get upset, then I will calm down and work to fix things in a few days. This
is why authors need feedback.

About the magic mechanics in my story. Let me just say that I am, in
general, a killjoy and a complete nut when it comes to rules: I had been a
storyteller for years for a World of Darkness tabletop and know how important
sticking to the mechanics can be but there is a ‘but' where this story is
concerned: staying within the confines of canon Nasuverse rules is not my focus,
having fun and letting characters grow is. Which admittedly requires rules to
keep things balanced and making sense.

However, I will not be breaking mechanics and throwing convoluted
chains of rationalizations your way unless I need to. As much as I like "From
Fake Dreams" by ThirdFang, I would rather keep my story deus-ex-machina-free
whenever I can. Which, admittedly, will not be others as the only reason the
characters get to a good end in the original novel is because you as a player
make all the right choices. I believe they need more than a bit of extra help
to believably survive what the War has in store for them.

Anyway, if I break things, I will try to give you an explanation
that at least kind of makes sense. A prime example being the Kaze no Nagare section
at the end of this Chapter: if Avalon can physically exist and sort of work, if
Fragarach is pretty much a Noble Phantasm used by a living, breathing human,
then why can't a weapon of this kind work? However, if you see that I am going
into la-la mechanics land: if you see True Magic being thrown about by
everybody, if you see mobile Bounded Fields or Saber using her A-rank Riding to
become a porn star millionaire…

Actually, if you see the final option anywhere in my text, call the
doctors, please.

Anyway, if you see stuff that simply doesn't make sense or breaks
the rules beyond any realm of possibility, mention it in a review, please.
Again, I won't be happy but I probably will do something about it.